Recent Posts

GE
–Barron’s
cover story – Barron’s says the stock has been disliked by
investors and sharply underperformed peers such as UTX and SI
over the past 10 years, but it’s ready to play catch up. Concerns
around the nuclear industry are overblown given it’s just 1% of
their revenue and gas / wind make up 40% of their energy
revenues, which would benefit if nuclear power faced more
scrutiny. Outside of energy, GE Capital and most of the company’s
segments are improving at a solid rate.

·WBS– pos.
comments; the stock could continue climbing into the
mid/high-$20s as its business recovers. The bank could look
to restore its dividend. WBS could become a takeover
target.

·Needham
Growth’s John Barr and Chris Retzler–
interview – pos. on ENTR as a play on MoCA buildouts.
Bullish on ENTG, MDRX, EFII.

·NDAQ/NYX
–the deal
is discussed in Barron’s – says the deal is a must for NDAQ which
risks being relegated to just a trading technology firm.
Barron’s thinks the anti-trust headwinds are surmountable.

·Flash
Crashpart
II? Market experts detected suspicious trading trends in
the month of Mar, many of which were similar to those that led to
the flash crash in May ’10.

·AAPL
–while
there are a bunch of headwinds for the stock, it is plausible for
it to trade up to $450 and surpass XOM as the market’s biggest
company by market cap.

·HPQ
–the new
mgmt team at the company has made some very questionable
decisions lately; meanwhile, Todd Bradley, who runs the PC
business and was passed up for the top job, almost left for a
senior role at INTC and could be a candidate to take over as CEO
at Acer.

·SIVB
–positive
comments in Barron’s – while the stock could have some near-term
downside and is expensive, the long-term outlook is bright given
strong loan growth prospects and healthy end markets.

·BRK’b
–Barron’s
remains pos. on the stock but says the Sokol departure is a neg.;
other candidates that could replace Buffett include Ajit Jain,
Matthew Rose, and Tad Montross, although all have
shortcomings. Geico head Tony Nicely is probably too
old. Greg Abel, the CEO of MidAmerican, could be a
candidate. Director Bill Gates could even step in on a
temporary basis if Buffett were to suddenly depart.

·German
nuclear power –Barron’s
talks about how RWE and E.On could b hit near term after Germany
imposed a 90-day moratorium on operating seven of the country’s
nukes that were commissioned pre-1981, which each company
operates two of the seven plants. The unexpected shortage is
likely to force them to scramble to make up the deficit. However,
Barron’s does say at the end of the article that the risk might
be worth the reward.

·POSCO
–Barron’s
says Buffett’s trip to Korea could be to work on a deal with his
single largest investment in Asia, POSCO. Buffett now has a 4.6%
stake in the company and says it is an incredible steel company.
The company will also benefit from Japan’s rebuild as well as
investments in India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Its purchases of
iron ore mines will also help with backward integration.